The motor vehicle lock in question is assigned to a motor vehicle door arrangement which comprises at least a motor vehicle door. The expression “motor vehicle door” is to be understood in a broad sense. It includes in particular side doors, back doors, lift gates, trunk lids or engine hoods. Such a motor vehicle door may generally be designed as a sliding door as well.
Crash safety plays an important role for today's motor vehicle locks. It is of particular importance that neither crash induced acceleration nor crash induced deformation leads to an unintended opening of the motor vehicle door to which the motor vehicle lock is assigned. The focus of the present application is to prevent an unintended opening of the motor vehicle door based on crash induced acceleration. In case of a side impact on the motor vehicle the outer door handle may be reluctant to follow the impact due to mass inertia of the outer door handle. As a result, a relative movement between the outer door handle and the motor vehicle door occurs, which again may lead to an unintended opening of the motor vehicle door.
The known motor vehicle lock (US 2011/0181052 A1), which is the starting point for the invention, is provided with the usual locking elements catch and pawl, wherein the pawl may be deflected into a release position by actuation of an actuation lever. The pawl may be deflected into its released position by an outer door handle which is connected to the actuation lever, if the lock mechanism is in its unlocked state. With the lock mechanism being in its locked state an actuation of the actuation lever runs free.
To guarantee a high crash safety the known motor vehicle lock comprises a crash element which is a separate component from the actuation lever. By the accelerations which occur during a crash the crash element moves into a blocking position in which the crash element blocks further actuation of the actuation lever.
One disadvantage of the known motor vehicle lock and particularly of its crash safety behavior is the observation that the crash element only reaches its blocking position in the case of a crash. Accordingly, there is no guarantee that during the lifetime of the motor vehicle that there does not evolve some obstruction that prevents the crash element from reaching its blocking position during a crash. Therefore the crash safety of the known motor vehicle lock may be improved.